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Information on the Parish of Wekense, Diocese of Kondoa, May 2009

Read by Wekense Church Secretary and translated by Beth. Notes from Graham are in italics.

Introduction

The parish of Wekense is centred on the village of Babaya. It lies 72km (45 miles) North West from the capital, Dodoma) and 100km (60 miles) South East from the area capital of Kondoa.

There are 496 households, 5189 people, of whom 1977 are Christians. There are 7 churches in the parish, (the others are situated amongst very scattered farms). There are other churches operating in the parish: Roman Catholic, Calvary Assemblies of God, Tanzanian Assemblies of God, Evangelical Assemblies of God and Apostolic. The religion of Islam is also present (and, in fact, the majority religion.) The parish has four organisations: Mothers Union, Youth, Sunday School and Men’s Group

The weather is hot between September and April and ‘cold’ (= a good English summer) between May and August. The parish has hills and valleys, which are good for farming but the rainfall is not great, which causes occasional food shortages and also low family incomes.

Plans, Structural

1. To build a new vicarage that will last. The one we have (clay and sticks) will only last a short time; it is not good enough for a servant of God.

2. To build a guest house for church visitors because we currently do not have space for our guests.

3. We plan to have a pre-primary school because we are very behind in our education.

Plans, Spiritual

1. To have seminars for the different groups (MU, Youth, Sunday School & Men)

2. To have a celebration service for the Youth, MU and Children

3. To do door-to-door (interesting when few houses have doors) evangelism, focused on the lost sheep.

4. Workshops for catechists and their spouses and Church Elders (DCC)

These things we have been doing but we wish to improve them so that we build up the Christians on solid foundations.

Plans, Projects

1. We need a sustainable farming project to motivate Christians to improve farming methods, for example by no longer using unproductive hand ploughs but ox ploughs instead, or even small tractors. (Meanwhile, Beth is experimenting with not ploughing!)

2. A livestock project with dairy cows for the vicar to improve his income, which is currently small and does not cover his needs.

We ask you to pray for us as we fulfil these plans.

Construction of the Parish Church

All the Christians of the Parish of Wekense thank you very much for opening your hands to provide us with help for the construction of our church. We thank you very very much for the first help, which enabled us to fetch stores (?), gravel (brought by truck from the nearby hills), and cement for the bricks (2700 handmade blocks), and foundations (firmly in place. The architect made them dismantle their first attempt at walls but they have recovered all the blocks. The new materials will construct floors and support pillars.) God bless you for the love you have shown to us.

Also we thank you for allowing your child, Bethany, who has visited our parish many times, to come to Kondoa. We thank her for her leadership of the youth department; (actually, that’s Tito who does that; Beth is in charge of education), she is doing very well.

We believe that you have a burden for the church of Wekense and also the Diocese as a whole. We are grateful that you have come to see us, face-to-face and also for brining the building materials with you so that we can continue building, (we took out the 2008 away giving donation of £450 and added this to the 2007 donation to purchase all the materials needed for the next phase – the amounts were exactly correct.) May God bless you. We pray that you will continue to have a heart of love and to pray for us so that we will complete the building work. God bless you very much in His work and may He pour out His blessings on you, here on earth and in heaven.

This is sent by us, the Christians of Wekense.

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